I need a sanity check, please

[figmo]

Here's the situation:

You're in a large, open room, working side-by-side with someone. A person from the other end of the building comes by and starts casually chatting, initially with just the other person you're working with side-by-side. Someone comes out of an office nearby and joins in the conversation.

The questions:

Is it rude for you, the other person in the open area, to also join in on the conversation?

Is it rude for you to acknowledge the conversation that had been held out in the open when chatting with the first participant later on?

or...

Is it rude for one of the people involved in the conversation to randomly exclude you even though they were holding the conversation right under your nose?

Please advise.

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

But replace "chatting" with "picking one's nose" (and "conversation" with "party," etc.), and you'll get a very different perspective! I think the Miss Manners' approved response is either to gamely ignore the whole thing or to ask the group politely to move the conversation. But it's tough to say that engaging in any behavior publicly and hope that it will be ignored is hoping for a little too much from the real world. People who want others to ignore certain behavior should engage in it behind closed doors, and I don't think it matters whether the behavior is talking or something else.